Bulking Diet

Since running the Toronto Marathon in October 2008, I’ve switched over to weight training. I still run occasionally, but my main focus has been the gym.

Early on I made little progress despite weight training 3-5 times per week. I’ve been working hard enough in the gym that I should be gaining weight, but no such luck. I know I am putting in the required effort, so the weak part of the mass gain equation must be diet.

To address this weak link in the mass gain formula I’ve created a new diet that should allow me to gain 1lb per week. I calculated my BMR (base metabolic rate), multiplied by an appropriate factor to determine how many calories I burn per day, and added 500 per day which creates enough of a caloric surplus to gain weight at the rate of one pound per week.

In my typical overanalytical fashion, I’ve created an Excel spreadsheet to plan my diet and ensure I am spreading out my calories, meeting my macro nutrient requirements, and hitting my target of 3300kcal per day. If you are interested to see the details or use the sheet to plan your own diet, it can be downloaded here.

The keys for me in creating this diet were to figure out healthy meals which could be made in minimal time. This diet allows me to cook all of my meals for the week in advance, and then I only have to make shakes and a sandwich for dinner on a daily basis. On the weekends I’ll just be eating whatever I feel like since 7 days a week of this would be a bit too boring.

This diet should be easy to prepare and stick to, so we’ll see if it works. I’m currently 154lbs, so hopefully I’ll be able to gain some quality mass.

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